It is a gorgeous day in Cave Creek, Arizona. The day is sunny, warm, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, and at last, the last book of the past 15 months of production, Torkom Saraydarian Autobiography, is finally at the printer. I feel like I have been holding my breath for over a year now. But now, I can breathe out and tell you what has been going on since my last blog on January 5th, 2011.

I have been busy in a new way in these last few years. I have not forgotten my friends and readers. Although I have been writing daily — thoughts, ideas, insights, poems, and study notes — I have not shared any of it with you but will do so soon.

Going back briefly, in the Fall of 2010, I felt I needed to pull back a bit from my daily and weekly routines and have an internal retreat. I felt my daily routine was getting out of control and, although I needed to continue with my work, I realized I needed to take time to make an internal change of how I saw my life and my work.

I decided I needed a “retreat” of a sort. I did not necessarily need to get away or stop working, but I needed to change my rhythm. The outer rhythm reflects what goes on inside, so I needed to work from inside out. So, this was going to be a “strategic retreat.” Although I did not know what exactly that meant at the time, I knew something had to change. So I started the process by shelving one project after another and asked myself: What is the most essential in my life right now and for the next 20 years or so? Just then, something interesting happened. As I decided to put a temporary hold on monthly lectures and blogs and concentrate more on the core of my work, a different opportunity slipped into my life, almost unnoticed.

As I related in my last blog, a friend called me and asked me about Torkom’s unpublished poems and Autobiography. After a few minutes of inquiry, she asked, “So, what do you need to get these published?”

I explained our financial needs and the amount of work still remaining on these specific books. She responded by sending the needed funds.

I have been asked similar questions hundreds of times over the years. What was the difference in this one person’s questioning that moved me to concerted action? It was her sincere, matter-of-fact directness, genuine inquiry, and crucially, her commitment to follow through and do her part. Like so many people who know how the laws of nature work, she knew and understood the law of give and take. As for me, I knew that in order to complete any project, I had to be ready to take the next step, dropping everything that was not essential to that project, and move ahead at full speed to be tuned into that huge energy burst.

Her clarity and directness gave me a renewed sense of urgency and I quickly adjusted my schedule. I poured myself into the poetry and read them, one after the other, page after page, poem after poem, and I cannot explain in words how profoundly moved I was. Slowly everything that was not immediately needed to be done was put aside. Then after several months, I dusted off the Autobiography. It was mid year 2011 when another generous donation followed. The work really began to flow to the extent that several manuscripts were completed and the books printed in this relatively short time. (See end of article.)

So, my spiritual-strategic retreat was exceptional. It was not a retreat from work but a retreat from worries on the one hand and, on the other hand, a strategic re-thinking of priorities in my life. I began to understand more richly how life works and flows in stages and stages, in little waves and big waves. There is a rhythm in our life and we can clearly attune ourselves to it if we stand still long enough to sense that rhythm.

With one telephone call, my worries became insignificant. As my worries dissipated, more abundance started to flow into our work and I started to have more optimism and faith in completing some of my life’s missions. This has given me a renewed understanding of the mysteries and dynamics of life.

We often exhaust ourselves thinking, worrying, pondering on things past, present, and future. These worries can all be swept away instantly when the energy shifts. This is not to say that I lacked support and caring friends previous to that special moment. On the contrary, my friends and supporters have been staunchly with me through all my life’s trials and tribulations. If I did not have their daily support, I would not be ready for the big wave. It is the daily support and friendships that accumulate and built up and built up until a big wave comes and helps the already rising tide to flow over. One never knows when the large wave of life is going to come toward us, but surely it will and we better be ready for it and be ready to make the needed shift in order to utilize it. If we are ready, the big wave can be a tremendous help. If we are not ready, the wave will not help at all but may even cause havoc in our life.

I learned the importance of continuous striving and working no matter what happens in my life. You never know where the help is going to come from and, when it does, you have no time to plan and think; you must be ready to respond. The same process holds true if we want to be healed, have an expanded consciousness, be more aware and mature, or even to have better relationships with our loved ones. We cannot sit idly by and expect that one person, that one miracle will save us. Our striving and our continuous and focused work will make us ready to take advantage of whatever life gives us. I believe that in our striving, we evoke from life what we need. Who knows what opportunities we miss everyday because we are not ready to see them? We have to be paddling along vigorously, recalibrate and focus continuously, and when the help comes, jump on it and keep going — sometimes even faster than before.

We are often caught up in an endless cycle of activity that creates a whirlwind of energy, circling around and around but going nowhere. These whirlwinds of activity will undoubtedly leave us listless and dispirited. When we find ourselves moving and yet stagnating, we may need to allow a huge wave into our life to get us moving ahead once again. Lots of activity — busy, busy, busy — does not equate to productivity, nor does it equate to accomplishing our life’s purpose. We can easily get stuck in continuous activities that take us nowhere, even when they feel pleasurable and wonderful at the time. There will be a time that we need to throw activities off our table and ask the essential question in life: Where am I going with all this?

This is how life progresses. We move ahead and get stuck; then a wave comes in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual ways and pushes us ahead or lets us crash on the shore. Each of these waves represents an opportunity to make a quick switch and move ahead in a new direction. We can do this if we are ready. It is cause and effect.

I feel tremendously grateful to all my friends, supporters, family members who stood by me and saw me through all these extremely busy months. Now I am back to building more little waves in my life and waiting for the next huge wave to bring even greater projects to fruition.

What we think are miracles are products of our striving and readiness. They are the fruits of our friendships and the support of our loved ones. They are the result of an awakened flexibility and focus. They are the result of evoking from life what we need as we strive to achieve it. Striving and focusing on the essential creates an energy that moves you forward. Love, faith, confidence, commitment, and the ability to stand behind our words are the big waves that move life forward in ever expanding cycles.

With joy,
Gita